WSPU Holloway Gate Design Tea Set

Sylvia Pankhurst, artist daughter of WSPU founder, Emmeline Pankhurst, was also responsible for the design on this cup and saucer and creamer manufactured by Williamson’s of Staffordshire.  Additional pieces to this set may have been made, but so far none have turned up. The decoration was taken from Pankhurst’s Holloway design, which was a modification of the crest for the House of Commons. It represented for her the gate at Holloway prison, where suffragists were incarcerated.  The purple of the prison arrow, the green of the gate, and the white of the cup were the official colors of the Women’s Social and Political Union of which Emmeline Pankhurst was the founder. This design was fashioned also into the famous Holloway or Portcullis badge, which was given out to all WSPU women who had been imprisoned for the cause.